Robbers Kill a Man in Brooklyn

By MICHAEL WILSON and RACHEL METZ

Published: December 4, 2006

A 52-year-old man was shot and killed by robbers leaving a Brooklyn building where five people had been forced to disrobe at gunpoint, the police said.

The man, Earl Williams, had been called to an apartment in the building, on Decatur Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant, shortly after 6 p.m. on Saturday and was shot as the three robbers walked outside, said Mr. Williams's fianc? Natasha Nelson, 24.

''He was a good person. He took care of anybody,'' Ms. Nelson said. ''He didn't have money for them to take from him anyway.''

Larry Bass, who lives in the building's basement apartment, said the robbery had begun with a knock on his window. Someone outside asked him to find another resident of the building, and the next thing he knew, three men had pushed their way in, said Mr. Bass, 49.

The robbers ordered the five people who were in the small building to gather in the basement apartment and strip, but the victims had only a few dollars among them, Mr. Bass said. Among the victims with Mr. Bass were three men, ages 29, 63 and 74, and a 31-year-old woman, the police said. One victim was pistol-whipped, the police said.

As they fled, the robbers ordered the victims to count to 100, Mr. Bass said. Before they had finished counting, he heard a gunshot outside.

Mr. Williams was shot once in the shoulder and died at Kings County Hospital Center at 9:50 p.m., the police said.

Ms. Nelson said that she and Mr. Williams had not yet chosen a date for their wedding. He had been home doing laundry with her when a woman called him to the building a few doors away, Ms. Nelson said.

Carmen Warner, 65, who also lives on the block, said that while she had not witnessed the shooting, she had been sufficiently concerned in the past about strangers entering and leaving the building to have contacted the police.